German factories just destroyed expectations with an explosion in orders
German factory orders just blew the doors off, with the strongest increase recorded in 2015 so far.
The June figures were just released by Destatis, Germany's statistical agency.
Orders rose by 2% from May alone, and surged upwards by 7.2% compared to the same month last year.
Analysts had expected a rise in orders of just 0.2% month-on-month.
That's the fastest year-on-year increase in orders recorded since May 2014.
Claus Vistesen of Pantheon Macroeconomics notes that this makes the second quarter of 2015 Germany's strongest for factory orders since 2011.
You can see the spike, particularly in foreign orders:
In fact, not only did foreign orders dominate, but domestic orders actually fell by 2%. The jump was entirely driven by foreign demand, which rose 4.8% in a single month. You can see the spike on the yellow line above very easily.
The euro popped too as the data came out, before settling down. As of 7:30 a.m. UK time (2:30 a.m. ET) it's at 1.0921 against the dollar, up 0.14%: